Engagement

Hi all,

My partner and I have been together for over two years now and we’ve recently just set a date to get married (october 4th, 2014 – it’ll be the 5 year anniversary of our of our first kiss that night)… the problem is, we’re not officially engaged. We haven’t told our friends or family that we’ve set a date as we don’t want the fuss right now mainly because I’m busy finishing Uni this year. We’re both happy with this arrangement but we have to figure out our engagement with an appropriate amount of time before the wedding. 

What do you think is a reasonable amount of time for us to work back from our wedding date to an engagement date with enough time for planning and engagement celebrations between?

Cheers for any help! x

Hi Imogen

Have you thought about totally surprising everyone and totally skipping the engagement altogether for something different? Although we had our engagement party a few months ago which was awesome. Our engagement party was 18months before our wedding date – planned it over about 2 months. This has given me time to get off cloud 9 about the engagement party (October 2011), and this week I have decided to put my head down, bum up and start getting serious about wedding planning (April 2013). 

Engagements can be any length of time. Some people have 5 years some people have 3 months. Why not just leave it up to your boyfriend to suprise you!!!

Might add a bit of extra fun to your lives- never being sure when it might happen!

Great idea JJaye. How fun.

Best to give your family and friend 6-3 months notice so all the imporant people can save the date

Hi Imogen, My parnter and I did exactly the same thing! We are getting married October this year (our 5yr anniversary of meeting as well!) but we booked the date in August of last year. We only just officially got engaged over Chrismtas so basically the family was given 10 months notice. Everyone seems pretty happy with that arrangment. I’m not sure what wedding bookingas are like where you are but around here you normally have to book at least 1.5yrs beforehand to get the date you want. If people ask how we got our date without the wait I just tell them it was meant to be seeing as it is our anniversary and all! Our parents know the real story though, although they didnt know until after the official engagement.

I hope this helps! I’d say 10 months is a good amount of time, especially if you want your parents to help out financially.

Wow! you are in the excat same position as me! Can’t offer any advise, but will be intresting what others think.

Wow! you are in the excat same position as me! Can’t offer any advise, but will be intresting what others think.

i would say 8+ months is enough time for an engagement, especially if you’ve already decided. what you could do is start talking about weddings around your family and friends so when you officially tell them you’re engaged they won’t be too surprised about the short engagement. another idea, i’m not sure where you’re getting married, but you could announce your engagement 6 months before, tell everyone it’s the engagement party, then get married as a surprise! i’ve heard about that happening a lot, couples getting married at their engagement party. bonuses are that you only have to plan one event, you can let only your bridal party and immediate family in on the secret, and you won’t have others people constantly asking questions about the wedding.

congratulations, by the way! i know it’s not official yet, but having already booked your wedding day you must be really excited! i hope it’s everything you wish for.

My partner and I did something similar.. His family is Greek, and I’m aussie, and we were seriously considering eloping, and not telling a soul, except for our witnesses. We started planning all this, and weren’t engaged.

The night that we were planning on telling our witnesses what was going on, we went out for a beautiful dinner, and FH surprised me by getting down on one knee..

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, as we’d been ring shopping a month earlier, but I was SO surprised, and at how quick he got the ring.. We are having our engagement party on the 2nd of June this year, and getting married on the 1st September this year, so only 3 months between..

It’s completely up to you guys, maybe he is buying a ring as you speak, and will plan on surprising you!!